


Severus

by eaglemouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: snape's love for lily is so sad. alexa play despacito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15718752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eaglemouse/pseuds/eaglemouse
Summary: Sad Snapefic





	Severus

His mind is a warzone. Always there are enemies at the gates.

The Dark Lord’s onslaught on the minds of his followers is omnipresent. Most cannot sense it, and those who can only learn that they are helpless. But not Severus. From the beginning, he held a part of his mind close. There are memories the Dark Lord cannot have.

He is there when the miserable worm Pettigrew comes sniveling to the Dark Lord with his traitorous intelligence. Potter made the dolt his secretkeeper. The idiot deserves to die.

But not her. That is impossible. It can hardly be thought.

He will ask the Dark Lord for clemency, but Severus has seen him murder allies on a whim. The Dark Lord is a raw power; his promises are only worth so much.

So Severus turns to his other master, one of pewter. Molten antimony, starthistle, lady’s mantle, unicorn blood.

*

They have not spoken in six years, but he hears her voice in his head as he works. _You could be something, Sev. A mind like yours could do so much good in the world._ It was their third-to-last conversation. In a desperate bid to impress her, to redirect her attentions from Potter, he’d shown her one of his original spells. It was one of the milder ones, and he’d demonstrated on himself, showing her how he could dissolve the bones in his finger through the skin. When his index finger started to wither she let out a scream, and through the pain he felt soaring, victorious, at her concern for him.

She whipped out her wand immediately, but hesitated. “What did you do? If I cast Emendo will it backfire?"

“It’s alright, Lily. I’ve got a poultice right here, look,” he said, wrapping his finger in a prepared mixture of potent herbs saturated with morning dew he’d gathered before breakfast. “Seven minutes and I’ll be good as new.”

“Sev,” Lily said, earnestly taking his undamaged hand and looking into his eyes with concern. He was hit with a wave of something warm and sweet, of honeywater and cinnamon. Her lips were moving, but all he could hear was a silvery buzzing in his ears. It took all of his concentration to keep his face carefully neutral.

Her face darkened, and with some effort he focused on her voice. “You’ve got nothing to say for yourself, then? You won’t even try to be a doctor at St. Mungo’s or, or something that helps people, instead of your---your friends. You could change the entire world!”

“I will,” he said automatically. “Lily, if you want me to change the world, I’ll do it.”

She laughed, but then withdrew her hand with a sigh. “I never doubted you would, Sev. But I wonder what side you’ll be on.”

_Yours, Lily. I’m always on your side._

The words died inside his mouth. Six years in the future, he tastes them rotting.

*

“My Lord. I have a favor to ask of you.”

Nagini raises her head, alert, and he knows that the Dark Lord is intrigued. Tread carefully. Some memories to the front---yes, some of Lily, the least precious of these. Other thoughts, other memories, to the back.

“And the nature of the favor?” the Dark Lord inquires.

“It’s about the Potters,” Severus begins, and his Lord’s eyes narrow. “I care nothing for the child,” he says, hurriedly. “It’s the girl that I want.”

“You…?” The Dark Lord looks surprised, a rare occurrence. Severus braces himself, then feels the slithering and probing in his mind. Then, slowly, the Dark Lord grins. “Aahh. Yes. The girl. You and she were in school together?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“I understand,” says the Dark Lord.

 _You understand nothing,_ Severus thinks with violence that surprises him, and he hurries to erect a wall before the Dark Lord enters his mind again.

“Very well,” says the Dark Lord. “I will spare the girl, and you shall have her, if you wish.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” Severus bows, and turns to exit the chamber.

He is not an idiot. He knows that Lily will never consent to have him, at least not at first. But she will be safe, and then in time she may come to see as he sees. And if not… well, when the Dark Lord reigns she will have nowhere to run, except to his side.

“Severus,” the Dark Lord says. 

He is almost to the doorway, and he pauses for a moment as if startled. It takes a moment to rearrange his thoughts, to hide the part of his mind that he holds close. Only then does he turn to meet the Dark Lord’s eyes. “Yes, my Lord?”

“It is a strange thing, Severus,” says the Dark Lord. “That you should want this mudblood girl.”

“Yes, my Lord,” he says, building walls in his mind faster than he can feel. “Many things are strange.”

*

Dragon horn, lizard leg, newt’s eye. The Dark Lord will move on Halloween night. It is not enough time for a potion this complex.

And there are further limitations. Lily is hidden. He cannot ask her to drink the potion. He has no way to contact her. With a stabbing pain he recalls that even if he could reach her, she would never trust him, and for good reason.

He tests the potion. He cuts off a toad’s finger, adds it to a vial of the potion, and then: _avada kedavra_. To his joy, the toad struggles for some moments before dying. It is what he hoped for.

The potion cannot yet counter the killing curse, but there are two ingredients still to add, and they are the most powerful.

First, her hair. She gifted it to him when they were children, laughing and confused, but willing. Hair that is gifted willingly is very powerful.

The second ingredient goes in with the first. He places the hair of Lily in a small cauldron, then, wincing, uses his wand to slice open his wrist. As the blood pools over the hair, he thinks fiercely of Lily. _I am doing this for her._ The blood is meaningless without intent. 

When the hair is fully concealed by blood, he heals himself. Although no trace of the cut remains, he feels faint and dizzy from bloodloss.

Muttering supplications to all forces under his breath, he pours the blood and the hair into his cauldron. The mixture hisses and bubbles and steams, and then there is nothing left to do but wait.

*

He should have tested the potion again. But there was no time. But he could have made time, slept less, tested the potion two, three times. He could have done more.

But it wouldn’t have mattered at all, in the end. None of his test subjects could have had Lily’s willful spirit, her strong magic. No toad could have thwarted his spell with raw emotion, foisted it onto a crying child.

 _That was for you!_ he seethes silently, gnashing his teeth in the night. _It was not yours to give away!_

But it was. It was magic freely given, and like all of his gifts to her, it was rejected. In her last moment all of her love and all of her defenses were poured into that whining, struggling lump of boy.

When the boy arrives at Hogwarts (love thief, potion-stealer) he is a small version of James. At the sound of his name, the Great Hall simmers with whispers boiling over into gasps. A celebrity for doing nothing, for passively absorbing Severus’s month of furious effort and Lily’s ardent love.

 _In a way,_ Albus likes to say, _you are also his parent. You gave him life._ Albus’ eyes crinkle behind half-moon glasses as Severus swallows his rage, chokes on it.

All of his mind and magic, all of his love, all to save Lily’s life, all for the insolent wire-haired boy with a scar he did nothing to earn. Everything Severus did for Lily, alive in this miniature James who is in every class and every hall and always where he shouldn’t be.

The loathing comes easily, tastes sweet. But then he is seized with strange and uncontrollable thoughts: _If you were my child, I would never have placed my trust in someone else. I would have spent my own blood to save you, rather than see you betrayed. If you were my child, your mother would still be alive._

Dangerous thoughts. Anguish that tears at his insides till he bites his tongue and it bleeds.

The boy is in every hall, on every stair. His eyes are green.


End file.
